September 22nd, 2008
1. Grandaddy, "Summer… It's Gone"
In spite of the changing sunlight and daylight hours, we try to fight the transitioning seasons until one day we give up and admit it: Summer's gone. For some, that means no more than a wardrobe change. For others who live in vacation locales, it means boarding up, locking the doors, and heading back to colder, more urban, inhospitable climes. As Grandaddy laments, "Summer, it's gone and now it's clear / That no one is showing up here… / And so I turn away to head down roads / Dead ends and holes / And crowds of fools with common colds." The fuzzy, folksy Modesto band treats the changing seasons in this song with the normal reactions: anger, wistfulness, and resignation.
2. Gwen Stefani, "Early Winter"
The chilly heartbreak in "Early Winter" is evident not just in the churning lyrics or in Gwen Stefani's tormented coo—it works into the weather of the song itself, literally. Over brooding synth figures and against a strange electronic wind, Stefani sings "I always was one for tears" before suddenly swerving into reportorial mode with as much surprise as suits the situation: "The song's getting cold—it's snowing. It looks like an early winter, for us." Some references claim it's "the sun's getting cold…," but the way it genuinely sounds plays out better as a clever conceit that finds her shivering inside the song and striving desperately to get out.
3. The Dismemberment Plan, "Spider In The Snow"
A chilly, sickly sounding downer in the midst of one of the most amazing records of the '90s—The Dismemberment Plan's Emergency & I—"Spider In The Snow" recounts a brutally lonely time, with forgotten friends, a yawning pit, and ghosts ruining everyday life. "How can a body move at the speed of light and still find itself in such a rut?" asks Travis Morrison. And when does the cold, cold action take place? "As winter froze the life out of fall," of course.
4. The Rolling Stones, "Winter"
Sometimes the seasons don't change fast enough. On "Winter," Mick Jagger sings about looking forward to the "long, hot summer" when the "light of love will be burning bright." But he makes the line sound like the hope of a man stuck somewhere cold for the foreseeable future. He certainly wasn't in California "when the lights on all the Christmas trees went out," and wherever he is now, the string section that blankets him on this standout Goats Head Soup track clearly doesn't provide the warmth he needs.
5. Elvis Presley, "Snowbird"
Anne Murray first had a hit with this song in 1970, but there's no better version than the one found on the classic 1971 album Elvis Country, which gives the heartbreak a tone of manic desperation. Like poor Mick Jagger, Elvis is stuck somewhere cold while his love has fled, presumably for a more temperate climate. That leaves only Elvis and a snowbird to deal with the snow. "Spread your tiny wings and fly away," Elvis begs, but the snow, the bird, and the accompanying sadness seem unlikely to disappear soon.
6. The White Stripes, "Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground"
Its title recalls the worst of the autumn-into-winter weeks, but most of The White Stripes' "Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground" sounds fairly upbeat: Jack White praises his love to a hyperbolic degree ("Every breath that is in your lungs is a tiny little gift to me"), and he can't wait to get home. But when he does, she isn't there, and there's no one to wrap his arms around. Sigh.
7. Red House Painters, "Have You Forgotten"
In a sad song by a band that made sadness something to be prized, a meditation on what it means to grow old and numb runs against memories of how significant and charged just about everything proves in youth. "When we were kids, we hated things our parents did," sings Mark Kozelek. He goes on to catalog a few stock memories—listening low to Casey Kasem's radio show, times when friends were nothing more complicated than nice—before moving into a seasonal shift: "The smell of grass in spring… In October, leaves cover everything." Just like that, he passes through the better part of a year with simple words ready to sniff and feel crunch underfoot.
8. Teenage Fanclub, "December"
Most of the lyrics in this melancholy power-pop gem from Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque don't make a lot of sense ("My mind is full of several things resembling a thought"), and the lyrical payoff isn't too direct, either: "I wanted to assassinate December." Still, anyone who's lived in wintry climes can relate to the sentiment.
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